Disk Space
by dr100
Summary: The Doctor and Martha land on Earth in the present day, and arrive in a Blockbusters store in the Strand in London, but they're not there to purchase DVD's and video games. Something is using the store as a cover, for what really lurks inside...
1. Chapter 1: A Troubled Soul

**Doctor Who**

**Disk Space **

**Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.**

**Chapter 1: A Troubled Soul **

**By Nathan Mullins**

* * *

"Never will I ever learn from my mistakes…" mumbled Martha, as she watched the Doctor screw around with the TARDIS console.

The console room was warm and bright, the central column challenging the Doctor's programming.

"Not going according to plan?" asked Martha, stepping in to help her 'friend'. She shoved the Doctor aside, and mimicked his actions, pressing switches, and having a laugh.

"All's well," said the Doctor, asking her very kindly to stand back whilst he was busy working, but she ignored him.

"Still after I saved your life, you're treating me like…" and Martha was thrown off her feet, unable to finish her sentence.

"Martha!" yelled the Doctor, trying to grab hold of her before she tumbled to the rails, but she was out cold.

* * *

At 3.00am, the TARDIS turned up on Earth, in a Blockbusters store in the high street in the Strand. The shop assistants stood back alarmed, as the blue box just suddenly arrived in a gust of wind, stolen from the world beyond the store outside.

The Doctor stepped out, instantly picking up DVDS and the like, quickly reading the information on each of them, before tucking them back neatly into their shelve space. Then he turned to a man dressed almost like a goth, behind the counter of the store.

"Hello, just passing through, but I was wondering whether you could possibly tell me whether or not you sent a distress signal. It registered on my thing in there, my blue box, my police box rather, that a signal came from somewhere around here…"

The till man looked dumbstruck, and then answered – "Are you a nutter?"

The Doctor shook his head, and took his glasses off. Starring at the man with fresh eyes, he could tell there was something odd about him.

"Tell me, Mr…"

"Mr Young."

"Tell me Mr Young, how long have you worked here?"

The man began to stutter, his words not quite flowing in the usual way.

"I…I…I… can't be sure. As long as I…I…I… remember, I think!"

The Doctor looked puzzled, but his eye brows were raised, and all became clear to him.

"Just as I suspected… short term memory loss, or rather driven into a ditch, and by that I mean, or am rather suggesting you've been brainwashed into turning people away from here. The reason your customers are standing groaning outside, being held back by a bouncer. You're protecting something, and whatever it is, I've got to find out what!"

The Doctor passed the man who continued to stutter.

"I…I…no you cannot pass…I…I… must alert HIM!"

By this time, the Doctor had already passed through a door behind the counter, and as he shut it behind him, he screamed in agony.

A green light enveloped the Doctors body, pinning him against the wood of the door he had entered. It was like electricity, stunning him, but the Doctor's hearts continued to pump blood around the body continuously, until suddenly…

"Please, the pain increases, NO!"

And the Doctor collapsed onto the floor, his eyes shut tight.

The creature ahead of him picking him up, and placing him in the machine.

"You will be the first of your kind placed into the memory of a disk that will last centuries. You will be a selective memory of the collective, and only serve the greater good when you are needed!"

* * *

**To be continued…**


	2. Chapter 2: Pain & 'of an unusual nature'

**Doctor Who**

**Disk Space **

**Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.**

**Chapter 2: Pain and 'of an unusual nature'**

**By Nathan Mullins**

* * *

"No, please, don't, ah, NO!"

The Doctor was swaying from side to side, trying to avoid the metal head gear coming down above him from the seat he was now strapped into, but finally it caught up with him, and he stopped, his brain now one with the machine.

The creature that had done this to the Doctor stood menacingly ahead of him, watching from a safe distance, as the machine began to puff and fume with eager anticipation. In his black gown, and black cape, and black hood, blacking out his facial features, the only recognisable trait the creature still owned on the inside and out, was its laughter.

"The first the machine will have to chew on!" he chuckled, scheming away, almost dancing around the chair in which the Doctor sat as if a child, that hadn't quite grown up into the alien he was…

* * *

Martha Jones suddenly awoke on the ground, looking up at the console, with no Doctor around to comfort her. Before she got up, she assessed her position.

"No bones broken, slight bruising around the shoulder, but that's only to be expected with you," she said, still looking up at the console just in front of her.

She got onto her feet, or rather boots, and walked towards the door. Peering out, she too noticed the racks of DVDS and video games, and sighed.

"London, and never anywhere else, that's typical of him," she moaned. She stepped out fully, shutting the doors behind her, and approached the counter. There was the same man trying to look as ordinary as he possibly could, though it just wasn't in his nature.

As Martha approached him, she realised he was muttering to himself, stuttering even, and he was looking dead ahead, he wasn't talking to her.

"Hello…" she said, but there was no response from him to her, only his odd speech that almost seemed to repeat itself, over and over.

"I…I…I…must alert HIM!"

Still Martha ignored him, turning to another man who clearly worked at the store also. She saw his name tag on his chest, and quickly stopped him in his tracks.

"Excuse me; I was wondering if you could help me…"

The man put down his broom stick, and answered – "Yes Ma'am, what can I do for you?"

Martha looked back at the other man stuttering, then turned back to the fellow she was talking to at present.

"Well for one thing, is he going to be okay?" she asked, turning her attention back to the man at the desk.

The cleaner looked past Martha, and nodded.

"Oh yeah, he's just having an off day," he answered. "Was there something else?" he added.

"Yes," said Martha. "You haven't seen a tall, lanky, handsome man, in a long brown coat and plimsolls'?"

The cleaner nodded. "Oh yeah, I sure did, he entered that door beyond the counter," and Martha watched him point out the door for her.

"Word of advice though Ma'am," he went on, stepping closer towards Martha, almost as if he was whispering a great secret to her, not wanting the other shop assistants to hear him.

"Don't attempt to save your friend, he'll have fallen victim to the CD Man by now!"

Martha didn't understand. CD Man? That sounded crazy.

"I don't understand," she went on.

"Okay, perhaps I wasn't clear," began the cleaner once more. "There's a man in that room beyond the counter who is called the 'CD Man'. He burns people to CD's, and that's no lie! I've known colleagues to enter inside there, and never return! That's why we've never any visitors. The government are too afraid to break inside, and so just for the hell of it stuck a bouncer on the front entrance. It makes no sense I know, though this leads me to ask, how did you get inside?"

Martha turned to the TARDIS.

"Oh, I thought I saw a blue box, and weren't imagining it!" the cleaner went on.

"My name's Joel, by means of saving you time calling me 'the man'. All to similar to the CD Man, so what's yours?"

"Martha Jones," said Martha, shaking the man by the hand.

"So, if the Doctor's entered through that door, what are his chances, and how do we get him back?"

"Slim chance," sighed Joel. "There's little chance of saving him."

"Surely there must be something?" Martha pressed on.

"Well, I've a theory, but don't laugh. This place, the generator produces energy and the like, giving this place power and stuff. The CD Man most likely uses this power to burn the many victims he preys upon! Should we turn the power off, no energy, or rather power to give his machine the one source it needs!"

"Then let's do it!" Martha went on, really in the spirit of saving the Doctor, despite him always ignoring her, it wasn't in her nature to leave him in the company of freaks.

"Tell me Joel…" Martha continued, as they both crept down a staircase into the cellar around the back of the shop.

"Why, if you knew what was going on in there, not do this in the first place?"

Joel had one simple answer.

"Because I don't want to die!" he stated, quite openly.

"But then you turned up, Martha Jones, and you show a real passion to do what's right. We need someone like you here, at Blockbusters, if you're interested?

Martha quickly shook her head.

"I'm alright thanks," she said, and then realised they had found what they had been searching for.

The generator was huge, round, and scary, in the sense that it seemed dangerous.

"Will you do it, or will I have to?" asked Joel, the frightened child he was, deep down.

"I will!" said Martha, grabbing the handle of the object, and yanking it down until the lights in the room they stood standing saving the day in, switched off.

As they ran from out of the room, up the stairs, and back into the shop, the dark enveloped everything.

"It wasn't as dark as this earlier…" Martha said, looking for the entrance in which before, light shone through, but it had disappeared. There was a cackle of laughter, a scream of fury. Something did not like what had just been done, and suddenly, the door in which Joel had spoken off before, flung back, and out fell the Doctor.

"It's him, we've done it!" yelled Martha, charging towards him, until Joel ran to hold her back.

"I think not Martha, LOOK!" and travelling through the door after her companion was a disk, hovering in the air, before falling into the hands of the hooded figure. He seemed to hover in the dark clouds his feet were buried in beneath him.

He grasped the disk, gave Martha and Joel a glimpse, and on the disk, an image of the Doctor. He seemed to want to escape, his arms raised in the air, his suit creased up, his facial expressions giving nothing away.

"He is mine, and the disk is yours!" the creature hissed, throwing Martha the disk, before a puff of smoke was left in the creature's place, he having vanished.

* * *

**To be continued… **


	3. Chapter 3: Messages and Regeneration

**Doctor Who**

**Disk Space **

**Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.**

**Chapter 3: Messages and Regeneration**

**By Nathan Mullins**

* * *

"I'm sorry Martha; I know how you must be feeling…" Joel sighed, ready to give his friend a hug, when she shook her head back at him, and then pointed to the Doctor.

"He can't be dead Joel, because our story doesn't end in a grotty blockbusters, I know that much!" and she bent down beside him, still with the disk in her hand. She felt his cheek, in which was stone cold.

Looking at the disk closely, and for a split second, she noticed a slight movement in the Doctor's position, as if he was trying to tell her something. His hands were still raised in the air, yet there was an object at the back of him, that had seemed to have appeared for out of nowhere, and now permanently placed on the silver disk.

"Eureka!" yelled Martha, turning back to Joel.

"What? What is it?" asked Joel, curious to know, sounding desperate himself.

"The Doctor's pointing at us, despite him being an Image that in reality can't come to life, but he's animated, and the TARDIS is now in the image he, himself, has given us to work with. He wants us in the TARDIS!"

"TARDIS?" wondered Joel. "Oh yes, the blue box… well what are we waiting for, let's do it!" and together they grabbed hold of the Doctor's body, carrying him towards the TARDIS.

As they stood outside, waiting for the doors to open, they just didn't, and then Martha recalled that the Doctor had not already given her a key, as if by now, he still just treated her as a passenger, and not a companion.

"The Doctor!" she said, laying him down on the now horribly black clouds closing in on the TARDIS.

She rummaged through all of his pockets, until she found what it was she was looking for. Pulling it free from his jacket inside pocket, she jabbed the key into the lock, and twisted it left and then right.

After a moment or so, it gave way, and again, Martha and Joel carried the Doctor inside.

As they filed into the console room, Joel stood in amazement of his surroundings.

"It's huge, bigger on the inside…" he laughed.

"You're sounding to sound like your stuttering colleague…" Martha joked.

Then, as they put the Doctor down, the TARDIS instantly sensed something was wrong, and activated emergency protocol 3000.

"Martha…can you hear me?"

The voice belonging to the Doctor rose in pitch as a hologram of him in his tenth persona appeared from a switch in the console.

"Doctor, how're you there?" she asked, confused knowing there was now three of him. On in the disk, one in the console room, but just his body, and one in a hologram, speaking to her as if all was fine and dandy.

"Martha, this is important. You've a disk in your hand, is that right?" and Martha nodded, showing the Doctor the disk of him.

"You've got to give that to me right now!" he went on.

Martha quickly handed him the disk, and he took it from her, thanking her.

"Doctor, what are you going to do?" and the Doctor turned to face his friend, and smiled.

"I've got to bond with the CD, soak up the energy of my true self, and give myself back to my other self!"

Martha watched as the hologram Doctor closed his eyes, concentrating hard, until a red and orange glow took hold of him, and the CD, until the CD Doctor began to climb from out of the CD into the hologram. Then the glow faded, and the hologram Doctor turned to Martha and grinned.

"Molto Bene!" he exclaimed, his hands thrust in side his pockets.

Then he looked to where his other self lie on the ground, and again, he concentrated hard. This time, still in full concentration mode, the Doctor spoke to Martha, reassuring her all was well.

"This should never have occurred. I've never before lived the life of a hologram, but my memories are still in tact, I'm just a product of the TARDIS."

The body of the Doctor stood up, strolling towards the hologram, and again, the glow increased surrounding the two, until the Doctor stepped free of the hologram, into the body of the Time Lord.

"And…" the Doctor screeched, putting himself to rights. "I'm BACK!"

* * *

**To be continued… **


	4. Chapter 4: Information Overload

**Doctor Who**

**Disk Space **

**Starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.**

**Chapter 4: Information overload**

**By Nathan Mullins**

* * *

The Doctor wobbled uneasily ahead of his companion, and her friend. The glow was fading, the realisation that he had held back the regeneration process. So much so that he understood he wasn't ready to leave his tenth body just yet, but he approached Martha, and hugged her, for what seemed like the very first time.

"Oh Martha Jones," he said, he holding her in his grip, his head resting on her shoulder, his wavy hair prickling Martha's skin.

"Well done you!" he went on, smiling.

"Well, it wasn't just me…" Martha replied, backing free from the Doctor, who then turned to Joel.

"Pleased to meet you Doctor," Joel said, in awe of the great and all too unusual man for him to get his head around.

"Oh the pleasure's all mine," said the Doctor. He smiled loosely at the cleaner, who returned him the gesture.

"So, what do we do about that creature?" asked Martha.

"Well," said the Doctor, "Nothing!"

"Nothing?" began Joel. "But Doctor, that thing has taken over Blockbusters, the store I work in!"

The Doctor shook his head, his hands coming free from his pockets, an arm stretching around Joel's shoulders.

"Not any more, you see when I returned, that creature no doubt made a dash for it, because he neither knew nor hoped for me to return from the disk world…"

"The disk world?" Martha had picked up in their conversation.

"Yes, I was trapped in the disk, but it was part of the CD creatures attempt to store memories for world domination or the like in years to come. I mean, we save things to CD's to preserve and capture memories we perhaps need, or rather use in later years. That's what I became, until you two," and he paused, looking at Martha and Joel, grinning. "Intervened!" he continued.

"Well I'm just glad you're back Doctor!" said Martha, once again taking him in her arms.

"But still that creature's out there…" Joel continued…

The Doctor gave him a wink.

"Oh yes, he is Joel, and so am I!" the Doctor informed him.

* * *

_The Doctor had set the TARDIS controls for Earth, present day, Central London, the Strand, Blockbusters._

It was a sunny day, and the streets were packed with traffic and tourists. In and among them all, appeared the TARDIS.

_^*VWORP, VWORP*^_

The TARDIS had landed, and before the doors swung back, the Doctor and Martha said their farewells.

"It was terrific saving the world with you Joel," said Martha, giving him a loveable hug.

"Thank you Martha, thank you Doctor!" he said, shaking them both by their hands.

"No need to thank me Joel, you and the aid of Martha here, helped bring me back! I'm grateful!"

Joel nodded, taking one huge step out the blue box, arriving on the Earth he feared he might never walk on again.

He was outside his store, and he ran inside, the smell of DVDS and video games driving him in, but as he ran inside, he turned back to find the TARDIS had disappeared, as if all that had ever occurred, had never happened at all, or at least it had, in his memories inside his head.

* * *

**An all new Tenth Doctor adventure set between Planet of the Dead and the Waters of Mars begins this afternoon. 'Apples' – will arrive here, shortly!**


End file.
